The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 217
An abnormally long fall has allowed the Alaska mining industry to extend seasonal work well into mid-October, creating a lot of new information about project work conducted around the state. Exploration efforts, in particular, benefitted from this additional field time. Based on information available to date, 2019 exploration expenditures are expected to be in the $135-140 million range, well ahead of the $120-125 million exploration spending tracked for 2018. In addition,...
Trilogy Metals Inc. Oct. 28 reported the final set of assay results from the 2019 drill program at Bornite, part of the company's Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects (UKMP) in the Ambler mining district of Northwest Alaska. The open-pit portion of Bornite hosts 40.5 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.02 percent (913 million pounds) copper; and 84.1 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.95 percent (1.77 billion lb) copper. The underground portion of...
Crystal Lake Mining Corp. reported that drills have tapped a new porphyry copper-gold zone at Newmont Lake; and surface sampling has discovered an entirely new hydrothermal system containing high-grade gold , silver, copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc and lead mineralization along a separate corridor on the northern British Columbia property. The porphyry copper-gold mineralization, announced on Oct. 9, was encountered by drilling at 72' Zone, which is about 2,300 meters northeast...
Australia-based Northern Cobalt Ltd. has agreed to invest as much as US$20 million over the next four years to earn up to a 60 percent interest in Millrock Resources Inc.'s enormous land package covering highly prospective gold targets in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District. Goodpaster has gained a lot of attention since Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s 2018 purchase of the Pogo gold mine at the heart of the district. While it has been just over a year since the acquisition,...
If you have watched the metals markets over the last month, you know why Alaska's mineral industry has surged, stalled, swerved, swooped, slowed, shelved and stuttered, sometimes all at the same time! Gold has gone above US$1,500 per ounce; copper pundits are predicting an increasingly dour future; zinc markets are looking to dive below $1.00 per pound; tin markets have marched strongly upward due to supply disruptions; and silver bulls are calling for annual worldwide...
Giga Metals Corp. Sept. 19 announced expanded resources and improved grades at its Turnagain nickel project in northern British Columbia. Incorporating the 36 infill holes drilled in 2018, Turnagain now hosts 1.07 billion metric tons of measured and indicated resource averaging 0.22 percent (5.21 billion pounds) nickel and 0.13 percent (312.4 million lb) cobalt. This is a 24 percent increase in measured and indicated tonnage compared to the last resource calculated in conjunct...
The initial results from 2019 drilling at the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska has the Trilogy Metals team excited, especially the first hole from the Sunshine exploration target about eight miles (13 kilometers) west of the Arctic Mine project. The US$18.2 million carried out this year at UKMP included six holes (1,357 meters) of exploration drilling at the Sunshine prospect, 10 holes (7,610 meters) of resource upgrade and expansion drilling at the Bornite...
Giga Metals Corp. July 29 reported that Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has agreed to be part of a consortium of government agencies and industry partners, including Giga Metals, that have agreed to fund research into the sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2) into silicate mine residue, including ultramafic residue from mineral deposits such as those being advanced at Giga Metals' Turnagain nickel-cobalt deposit in northern British Columbia. "We are proud to support this...
Earlier this month Reuters reported that several agencies within the U.S. Federal government were "rapidly assessing" our domestic ability to mine and refine rare earth elements and utilize those 17 super cool elements in value-added products needed for a wide and ever-growing array of consumer and national defense products. Not surprisingly, mining industry officials demurred when quizzed about supplying information on where rare elements might be mined in the U.S. and how...
Northern Cobalt Ltd. July 1 reported that metallurgical sampling of rock chip samples from its Snettisham project demonstrates the potential to produce a high-grade magnetite (iron) concentrate with vanadium credits, providing further confidence in the economic viability of this Southeast Alaska project. In June, the Australia-based company estimated that the mafic-ultramafic Alaskan zoned intrusive complex at Snettisham hosts 297 to 551 million metric tons of high-grade...
Earlier this month S&P Global put out a summary indicating that during the first quarter of 2019 metals like copper, zinc and nickel were up quarter over quarter by 11 percent, 22 percent and 25 percent, respectively. More recently gold has skyrocketed beyond the $1,400-per-ounce mark for the first time in many months. Correspondingly, the mining industry's aggregate market cap also rebounded strongly in the period after four bearish quarters, rising 12 percent to $1.43...
Canada is one of the world's richest sources of raw commodities, not least of which are the so-called rare earth elements. While China currently dominates global production and hosts some 35 percent of the world's known resources, observers believe Canada is endowed with world-class rare earths deposits, which could account for as much as 40-50 percent of the world's REE reserves. Demand for rare earth elements, along with lithium minerals, tin and other critical materials,...
In the famous words of Sherlock Holmes, the game is afoot! After seasonally slower news from Alaska's mining industry in March and April, the dam has broken with over two dozen Alaska mining project news releases issued in the last month. Including those projects moving forward that have not released their 2019 plans, Alaska has become a very busy place under the sun. All of our major metal mines reported strong performances in the first quarter, several of Alaska's most...
When it comes to managing its more than 1.5 million acres of land in a region of Southcentral Alaska renowned for its natural beauty, Copper River salmon, abundant wildlife and one of the richest lodes of copper to ever by mined on earth, Ahtna Inc. balances development for the prosperity of its current shareholders and preservation of resources for future generations. An important facet of this management is ensuring that there are plenty of plants, fish and wildlife to suppo...
As is usually the case this time of year, the mining industry is awash in backward-looking statements designed to allow for more accurate forward-looking statements. Prime among them is one of my favorites, S&P Global's annual "World Exploration Trends 2019", a summary of what happened industry-wide in 2018 and what it may portend for the mining industry in 2019. The study predicts that global exploration budgets will increase again in 2019, although by a smaller amount, with...
Seeking economic and cultural prosperity for its more than 22,000 Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian shareholders while also looking to provide even greater benefits for future generations, Sealaska takes a balanced approach to developing the resources growing above and stored beneath its lands in Southeast Alaska. This does not mean the Southeast Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) corporation shuns mining or other resource development in its region, a nearly 600-mile...
When it comes to attracting mining investment, Alaska, British Columbia and all three Canadian territories rank among the top 20 jurisdictions in the world on the Fraser Institute Survey of Mining Companies 2018. This report asks industry professionals from around the globe to score mining jurisdictions based on their mineral endowment and various policy topics important to mining. "The mining survey-now in its 21st year-is the most comprehensive report card on government...
Northern Cobalt Ltd. Feb. 26 reported that a recently completed magnetic survey has confirmed the presence of a large magnetite body at its Snettisham vanadium-titanium project in Southeast Alaska. Situated about 50 kilometers (32 miles) south of Juneau, Snettisham hosts a large outcropping body of magnetite with iron, titanium, vanadium, and possibly platinum-group elements. This intrusion extends for at least 3,800 meters along the coast of the Snettisham Peninsula and up...
The Red Dog Mine has been a gamechanger for the more than 14,000 Iñupiat shareholders of NANA Corp., the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) regional corporation that owns the world-class Red Dog deposits in Northwest Alaska that are the source of around 5 percent of the world's new zinc supply each year. The revenues from shipping out more than 1 billion pounds of zinc annually, along with healthy portions of lead, silver and minor amounts of germanium, has served...
Whether it be precious metals such as gold and silver, base metals like copper and zinc, or battery metals like nickel and cobalt, northern British Columbia is rich in the type of metal deposits that junior mining companies are hoping to discover and majors are wanting to mine. Couple this mineral endowment with good infrastructure – especially stacked up against the other jurisdictions in the North of 60 Mining News coverage area – and northern B.C. continues to draw str...
Primarily focused on gold, copper and silver, Millrock Resources Inc. is a project generating mineral exploration company that has built a large portfolio of highly prospective mineral exploration properties in Alaska, British Columbia and Mexico. Many of the projects the company has generated have been sold recently to other companies in exchange for cash and shares of the company acquiring and exploring the project. For 2019, Millrock focused largely on amassing a large...
Geologists familiar with Alaska already know the Far North State is a great place to explore for critical minerals and metals such as graphite, rare earths, platinum metals, cobalt and tin. A new report published by the U.S. Geological Survey, however, indicates that Alaska may be richer in these and other minerals and metals vital to the economy and security of the United States than previously realized. Working alongside the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical...
With nearly indistinguishable characteristics, niobium and tantalum are considered the "indispensable twins" among the 35 minerals and metals considered critical to the United States. "Niobium and tantalum are transition metals that are almost always found together in nature because they have very similar physical and chemical properties," the U.S. Geological Survey wrote in a 2018 paper on the twin metals. While nearly identical twins, they each have their own set of unique...
The strength and durability of steel and other alloys is greatly enhanced by adding a small amount of vanadium, currently the primary use of this critical mineral. While this toughness is legendary, the future of vanadium could rest in another set of more subtle traits that could make it the element of choice for large-scale storage of renewable energy generated by wind and solar. "Vanadium is becoming more widely used in green technology applications, especially in battery...
Cobalt is a critical safety ingredient in the cathodes of lithium-ion batteries powering the ever-increasing number of electric vehicles traveling global highways and a plethora of cordless electrical devices. "Globally, the leading use is in the manufacture of cathode materials for rechargeable batteries – primarily lithium-ion, nickel-cadmium, and nickel-metal-hydride batteries – which are used in consumer electronics, electric and hybrid-electric vehicles, energy sto...
